Whitesox1984’s Offseason Plan

PREAMBLE

The 2020 season was fun and exciting.  In this dumpster fire of a year 2020, it gave us something to look forward to and ease our minds.  Now, you could be a pessimist and say that this season didn’t count.  That the 60 game season didn’t provide an actual road map to where a team is currently on his path to a World Series. That no fans in the stands provided low pressure situations for young players, who would eventually underperform in high pressure situations (Matt Foster I am looking at you). The Covid excuses for the 2020 season are honestly endless.  However, I don’t buy into that.  I watched every game this season.  This team and it’s players are headed in the right direction and are on the cusp of a World Series Championship.  They need to be aggressive this offseason and take advantage of team friendly deals like Anderson, Eloy, Robert, etc.  Those will not last forever.  Thus, I want to be aggressive!

ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS

  • Nomar Mazara: $5.6M | $5.9M | $5.7M: NONTENDER
  • Carlos Rodón: $4.5M | $4.5M | $4.5M: NONTENDER
  • Lucas Giolito: $2.5M | $5.3M | $2.5M: TENDER (Work out extension if possible)
  • Reynaldo López: $1.7M | $2.2M | $1.7M: NONTENDER
  • Evan Marshall: $1.3M | $1.9M | $1.4M: TENDER
  • Adam Engel: $1M | $1.4M | $1M: TENDER
  • Jace Fry: $800K | $1M | $800K: TENDER
  • Yolmer Sánchez: Uncertain: NONTENDER (Menwick 🙂 proved he can play. 

CLUB OPTIONS

Write “pick up” or “decline” or “rework” after the option.

  • Edwin Encarnación: $12M: DECLINE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
  • Gio González: $7M ($500K buyout): DECLINE 
  • Leury García: $3.5M ($250K buyout): PICK UP

OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS

Try to retain, or let go?

  • Alex Colomé (Made $10,532,500 in 2020): RETAIN. I would offer 2 years/20 million.  He has never had overwhelming stuff, but has been a consistently good closer for 5 years. 2021 shouldn’t be…let’s play musical closer year. 
  • James McCann (Made $5.4M in 2020): LET GO. 
  • Jarrod Dyson (Made $2M in 2020): LET GO

COACHING STAFF

  • Manager: AJ HINCH
  • Pitching coach: His choice

FREE AGENTS

SP Marcus Stroman: 5 years 125 million. 

Do I care that he once had a little disagreement with Tim Anderson? No.  Do I care he sat out last season to ensure nothing affected his impending free agency? No.  We all saw game 3 right?  Ok, just checking. Stroman has been reliable and good for the majority of his career.  He’s still only 29 years old and has thrown over 200 innings in 2 out of the last 4 years.  He reached 184 innings in 2019 prior to his injury.  He has a great reputation, a nasty slider and has pitched in high leverage situations.  Does he have the natural stuff of Zach Wheeler?  No, but I still offer the Wheeler contract to get him here.

SP Mike Minor: 1 Year 10 million

Yes, another starting pitcher.  Minor was on his way to a nice free agent contract prior to this year.  He’s obviously struggled recently, but I think it’s worth a flyer to see if you can get him for a one year bet on yourself deal.  If it doesn’t work out in the starting rotation you can try him out in the pen.

C Tyler Flowers: 2 years 12 million

Yeah, I think he’s gonna end up on all the off season project plans and he should.  Zach Collins is clearly not the answer and there is no room for another 1B/DH on this roster.  Flowers is a great defensive catcher and is not entirely useless at the plate.  Bring him home.

OF/DH: Yasiel Puig: 1 year 8 million

There are a lot of reasons that Puig couldn’t land a gig last year…catching Covid didn’t help.  He still provides value with his bat. So I think that he can be a good option because I’m trading…

TRADES

No. 1: Trade Andrew Vaughn to the Mets for Brandon Nimmo.

We could sign Joc Pederson or George Springer, but I assume after we spent all that money on Stroman that were gonna look elsewhere.  And by elsewhere I mean as far away from Nomar Mazara as possible.  Nimmo is a left handed bat that hits for power and gets on base (.404 OBP in 2020).  The Mets are overloaded at corner outfield spots and are in need of right handed bats that hit for average and power.  Vaughn could slide into the 1b/DH role and give them a young controllable asset for a few years will new ownership decides which players it wants to offer contract extensions too.  As for the Sox, Nimmo is under contract for another 3 years.

SUMMARY

Lineup:

C: Grandal $18.25M

1B: Abreu $17.67M

2B: Madrigal $0.5M

3B: Moncada $6.8M

SS: Anderson $7.25M

LF: Jimenez $4.33M

CF:Robert $3.5M

RF: Nimmo $4.1M

DH: Puig $8M

Bench: Engel $1.4M

Bench: Garcia $3.5M

Bench: Flowers $6M

Bench: Mendick $0.5M

SP: Giolito $5.3M

SP: Keuchel $18M

SP: Stroman $25M

SP: Minor $10M

SP: Dunning $0.5M

The bullpen comes in around 17 million. I left the bullpen pieces in place as I think it was a good bullpen and mostly mismanaged.

Total salary for the year sits at around 157 million.  Aggressive you say?

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texag10

I have two problems with the Nimmo trade. Nimmo is more of a left fielder so I’m not sure we want him patrolling right for us. I also don’t know that the Mets would prioritize another righty 1B if they are trading Nimmo since they have Alonso entrenched there for a long time to come. There’s a chance that they view him as a 3B and this conversation changes if the NL DH becomes permanent but right now, I don’t see how Vaughn is the centerpiece of that trade.

Eagle Bones

They also have Dom Smith who should be playing 1b. The good news is I dont think you even need Vaughn in that deal to get nimmo. Maybe something around cease?

GrinnellSteve

I can’t imagine Flowers gets $6M per. Predicting FA contracts this winter is really hard, but that seems off. Nimmo is an interesting target.